


and i hope when you think of me years down the line

by ArtificialFlavorz



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Slow Burn, beta read by grammarly, warnings will be updated as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 10:54:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30088002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtificialFlavorz/pseuds/ArtificialFlavorz
Summary: He hears the familiarclickof a safety being removed as the cold steel of Viper’s barrel presses into the nape of his neck. “Oh, Jesse,” she drawls, “Come on now. You know there’s only one way to leave the gang.”
Relationships: Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe & Jesse McCree, Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe/Jesse McCree
Kudos: 5





	1. sand through the hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-work of a piece I posted on here last year but was ultimately unhappy with. I hope you enjoy the rewrite!

She dreams she is standing at the edge of a canyon-- her canyon; the gorge, the way it looked when she first came up from Texas. A big and empty cut in the ground, the land’s knife-wound from God, rimmed by scrub brush and cacti that cling to life in the sun-baked earth. The air is still and smells like sweet sage and lingering cigar smoke. The sky -- clear, empty, and blue -- seems to stretch on forever. Buzzards circle something on the horizon and dread finds its familiar home in the pit of her stomach. 

She knows she is too far to hear the birds’ cries, and yet they ring clearly in her ears, loud enough to drown any thoughts. She looks up, squinting in the bright daylight, and realizes the buzzards are not on the horizon, but overhead, doing lazy loops, eyeing her with hungry eyes. They dive towards her, one after the other, digging their beaks and talons into her flesh, tearing it like tissue paper. She can’t bring her arms to move to beat them away, nor can she force her eyes to close, and so she watches, unblinking, as the birds tear her limb from limb, and disappear into the endless blue of the sky, leaving only a sun-bleached skeleton in their wake.

_July 16th, 2076_

Ashe leans her back against the wall of the old ranch house. Her exposed thighs, burnt by the summer sun, brush against the white sage that grows through the cracks of the home’s crumbling foundation. She’s always enjoyed this time of year -- the hot days, the afternoon thunderstorms, the cool air of the evening. On summer nights she watches the sunset from her seat among the sage, admiring the way the fading light bounces off the canyon’s steep orange walls, the lengthening of the shadows of the scrubby juniper bushes, the bright orange flash that reflects off the warehouse entrance half a mile down the road. The chirping of unseen crickets reminds her of evenings back in Texas, of a time since soured that, in the glow of early evening, she can very nearly recall as sweet.

This particular evening is the kind that makes her long to ride her bike through the fading warmth of dusk, to leave the weight on her shoulders in the clouds of dust kicked up behind her. Of course, she thinks, pulling a pack of cigarettes-- the long, thin menthols she’s preferred for nearly a decade-- from her breast pocket, it’s not like she’ll ever see that damn bike again. 

She holds the cigarette between her lips and lights it, fumbling for a few seconds with the lighter. When it finally sparks, she takes a long slow drag and gives the lighter a shake. 

_Low on fluid. When it rains it pours._

She exhales and taps the cigarette against the wall, watching the displaced ash drift slowly in the gentle summer breeze. In this moment, surrounded by the desert scrub and the gentle hum of the evening crickets, she can almost believe everything is perfectly normal; that the last few months never happened-- the train, the bike, the weeks that followed; that the impossible decision she faces can dissolve in the honey-gold light of a desert sunset. 

Almost.

_I’m afraid money won’t cut it anymore, Ms. Ashe. At least, not what you can afford. So how about we renegotiate our terms? You do a job for us, and we’ll be out of your hair._

She takes a final drag off her cigarette as the sun dips further behind the canyon wall, barely visible above the lip of the rock. She flicks the spent butt a few feet away and tries to piece together when things first began to fall apart. She supposes the real trouble started when the train heist went tits up. She and the triplets spent three days in the holding cell of some backwater sheriff before Jay posted their bail. She figures she’s lucky she pried out her ID chip a few months ago; lucky the wanted posters didn’t survive the rainy spring; lucky she hadn’t bothered to reset the code to the safe after the bender that left her so delirious she left a post-it with the numbers on the fridge; lucky it took Zeke as long as it did to blab to the boys exactly what (or rather, who, she corrects herself bitterly) blew the mission in the first place, throwing her under a bus she’s spent the last eight years clawing her way out from beneath.

The feared leader of the Deadlock Gang, brought down by a ghost from her past. Lucky.

She allows herself to wonder, briefly, what the perpetrator of her personal haunting would say about the decision she’s yet to make. Probably something about standing up for what she believes in, or some other morality-watchdog bullshit. He always fancied himself to be Robin Hood in a poncho. 

The thought passes as the sun disappears behind the canyon walls. The spell of early evening breaks and she stands, the night air too cold against her sunburnt legs.

_June 13th, 2076_

Elizabeth Caldonia Ashe is intimidated by only a few things in the world -- her father, scorpions, aneurysms -- but the man seated across the table from her makes the list. “Can I interest you in a drink?” She tips the freshly opened bottle of whiskey towards him with feigned hospitality, lips drawn into a tight fake smile. He shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. “Suit yourself.” She pours herself a glass and leans back slightly in her chair, taking in her unexpected guest.

He’s hardly the typical client. The Deadlock Gang doesn’t exactly deal in small-time crime, but he far outpaces mid-size arms dealers and crooked police departments. Her wanted posters may be nailed to every lamppost and bar front across the Southwest, but she recognizes him from the nightly news; a man Zeke once described as a ‘damn refrigerator with arms’-- his dark skin, shaved head, and hulking frame unmistakable, even in a pressed suit.

“Do you always drink this early in the morning?” His voice is deep and flat. It’s hardly an introduction, but she supposes he knows his reputation precedes him.

“On special occasions -- after all, it’s not every day a global terrorist walks in and demands a meeting with little old me.” She keeps her voice level and cool, the feigned smile still stretched across her face as she sets her drink down on the table, adjusting the coaster beneath it. “Now, Mister…” She trails off. The news calls him ‘Doomfist,’ but it’s hardly a name that rolls off the tongue, much less one suited for more delicate business negotiations.

“Doomfist.” It sounds as odd coming from his mouth as it would have from hers.

She arches an eyebrow but knows better than to press the matter. “Well then. Mr. Doomfist, what brings you ‘round these parts? You know the Deadlock gang ain’t interested in contracts with your organization.”

His expression remains indecipherable. “And with Overwatch?”

She lets out a short laugh, but there’s no real humor behind it. “We got our own problems to deal with. Don’t want none of theirs.” Her cheeks relax as the fake smile fades. “Yours neither.”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure the problems of anachronistic bandits such as yourself are numerous and complex.” She bristles a little at that but remains silent. “But don’t worry, Ms. Ashe. Talon’s not looking for your services, per se. Not yet. Rather, we’re hoping to assure that your problems…” He gestures vaguely with a hand easily the size of her head, “don’t become more numerous.” 

“I don’t like threats, Mr. Doomfist.” Ashe raises the glass of whiskey to her lips but doesn’t sip it.

“Ah, but I’m sure you’d like them even less if they’re followed through on.” He smiles at her, but the gesture is far from friendly. “You see, Ms. Ashe, Talon has recently… acquired, one might say, control of the railway that runs through this gorge to the border. Lots of agents in those cars.” He leans forward on his hands, a few rings glinting dully on his fingers. “All I’m asking for at the moment is a financial guarantee. After all, we wouldn’t want some of them to find their way here under less… friendly circumstances, would we?”

She hesitates for a moment, trying to gauge the sincerity of the threat. If this were a proposition from a rival gang, she would laugh in his face; toss some whiskey in it for good measure. She’d pull Viper from the holster at her hip and make an apology for the audacity of his demands his last words.

She lets out a sigh. Doomfist isn’t some jacked-up cocky kid from across the gorge, playing at gangsters with a cheap pistol. His is not a bluff she is willing to call. “How much?”

“Fifteen-thousand for this month.” She lets a hiss of air out between her teeth, glaring, and his smile widens, “And if that doesn’t suit you, we can renegotiate our terms next month.”

She nods, not pushing the cost. The gang can afford it, but barely. The train fiasco ten days before blew an unexpected hole in their budget.

“Oh, good. And here I was thinking you’d be trouble.” He leans back in his chair, hands behind his head. “You know, I think I’ll take that drink now.”

_July 16th, 2076_

She hangs her hat on a nail by the side door, clicking both locks into place behind her. Can’t be too careful, even with nothing around for miles. She’s had her fill of uninvited guests. She slides off her boots, dark leather stained orange with fine sandy dust, and places them carefully next to the four larger pairs.

 _Four pairs_ , she thinks. _Some bastard’s tracking dirt on my floors_.

She follows the sound of laughter to the dining room. She can hear the boys shouting on the other side of the door before she pushes it open, though they all fall silent as she enters the room. They appear to be the middle of a hand of poker, each clutching a stack of cards, a pile of hand-painted chips in the center of the table. She’s had a ban on real stakes games since the day Randall pistol-whipped Zeke. 

She pauses, taking in the scene, and Terran stands, disappearing through the door that leads to the kitchen.

“Welcome back, boss. Enjoy the fresh air?” Jay breaks the silence right as Ashe’s eyes land on his feet, propped up on the table in front of him. She takes a step forward, positioning herself within an arm’s length of the toe of his dust-caked boot, calmly drawing her coach gun from the holster on her hip. She presses the gun’s barrel into the sole of his left shoe, and clicks back the safety. 

“How ‘bout you take your boots off my table while you still have feet to fill them with.” Jay complies, looking sheepish. 

Terran returns, holding a bottle of whiskey by its neck in one hand and a glass in the other. “So, boss. Can I deal you in?” He hands her the bottle and glass before gesturing to the cards.

“No.” The question is a formality. It’s a well-known fact that Elizabeth Ashe hasn’t played poker in eight years, that she hasn’t gambled since she lost the only card in her hand she refused to play. She settles in the seat at the head of the table, pours herself a glass of whiskey, downs it in a few quick gulps, then pours another. The awkward silence that accompanied her entry returns, punctuated only by the shuffling of cards. She takes another swig of her drink, then sighs. “Come on, boys. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”

“You made your decision yet?” Randall eyes her from the other side of the table, an unlit cigarette hanging from between his teeth. She wishes he would just smoke them, instead of chewing the filter to hell. By the time he finally gets around to lighting them he only gets a few puffs in before he’s left with a pulpy mess, which he’s liable to drop on the floor for some poor sap to step in.

“I’m thinkin’ about it. Still got three days left.” She throws back the rest of the glass and frowns at him. 

“What’s there to think about? Either Talon kills us or they don’t. Seems like an easy choice to me.”

She’d be lying if she said the thought hadn’t run through her head too. It’s not like she and five idiots can hold off a multinational terrorist organization, and they’ve run plenty of contraband for morally dubious clients, but something about signing on to Doomfist’s terms doesn’t sit right with her. A few shotguns and a couple of cases of bullets aren’t exactly analogous to five train cars packed with nuclear-powered weapons of war. The line between outlaws and terrorists isn’t one she’s particularly interested in crossing, and the patronizing tone of Randall’s question fails to make her any more inclined to listen to his opinion on matters.

“Y’know, it’s funny. I just can’t recall anyone here makin’ you the leader.” She stands, grabbing the open bottle by the neck, and stalks out of the dining room. 

+

She lies on the bed, the covers still tucked in beneath her. Summer nights in the old house are too warm for blankets.

Her vision swims with the effects of the whiskey, the rotating arms of the ceiling fan overhead doubling and coming together, and it feels to her like the room spins in time. The breeze that comes through the open window carries on it the scent of sage and something else, something akin to melancholy. She closes her eyes for a minute, trying to make sense of her thoughts.

Seventy-two hours. Talon gives her a week to decide whether she and the boys would run transport ops for them for the next few months, and she has just seventy-two hours left. She’s not sure why she can’t just say fuck it, let’s run the guns. She’s not a woman known for moral crises, and, shit. A choice between living or dying should be easier than this. 

Time can’t be bothered to remove his boots, and the sand that runs through the hourglass spills onto the polished wood floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: for the purpose of my own selfish headcanons, I've aged down both Ashe and Jesse from canon, making Ashe about 29 and McCree about 31.


	2. homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s no longer calamity incarnate, scorching the ground and salting the earth of those who dared oppose her. She’s quietly drinking burnt coffee in a kitchen with linoleum flooring and trying to talk herself into exponentially increasing the blood on her hands.

_ Summer, 2064  _

She arrives in Texas on a Monday. B.O.B. meets her at the bullet train station in Dallas, waiting to heave her luggage to the idling limousine waiting outside. The bags, heavy with textbooks she barely opened and two or three wardrobes’ worth of clothes, pose no challenge to the omnic, who dumps the luggage unceremoniously in the vehicle’s open trunk.

They ride in silence, save for the mechanical whirring the driver and B.O.B. She likes to imagine they’re conversing, though she’s sure the noise is just their internal fans struggling against the Texan heat. 

The limousine kicks up dust as it approaches the gates to the family property, crossing the swaths of bare land, spring fields grazed down to several hundred acres of packed dirt. A few cattle watch as they pass by, tails flicking at the flies that gather near their hides.

They arrive in front of the big house without ceremony. It’s unsurprising -- calling her arrival a homecoming is a stretch, seeing as the big house doesn’t feel like anyone’s home, much less hers. She’d hardly expect her parents to be waiting-- her mother on the wrap-around porch, weeping with joy into a silk handkerchief as her father smiles down at her proudly, hands on his wife’s shoulders.  _ Our baby, a high school graduate.  _

The porch is empty, the front door locked. She silently congratulates herself on her pragmatism as B.O.B. fumbles with the lock. There are few practices in which she is as well versed as tempering her own idealism.

+

She settles on one of the overstuffed chairs in the library, feet tucked beneath her and watches B.O.B. unload the limousine through the large picture window. She balances an open book on her left knee, in case her father comes to greet her, but doesn’t bother to glance at it. The pages flutter gently in the breeze of the fan overhead, the slowly-rotating blades of which does little to keep beads of sweat from forming along her hairline.

It’s barely early summer, but the heat in the house is already stifling. The sun beats down on the land outside, baking the packed earth, and streams through the window. She can feel it beginning to burn her fair skin, but she doesn’t move to close the blinds. She refuses to become her mother, slathering on the thick sunscreen Marie insists is the secret to eternal youth, even indoors. The wintery spring of her New England boarding school has left her too pale, she thinks. Maybe she could do with a little color.

The sound of the doorbell startles her out of her thoughts, the ring echoing through the cavernous house and reverberating off the marble floors. She stands hastily, setting the book face-down on the chair. With B.O.B. still unloading the car, she supposed she should be the one to answer the door. 

She’s at the top of the grand staircase when the bell rings again. “Comin’!” She scrambles down the staircase, slipping slightly on the polished marble, and skids to a halt in the house’s entryway, standing on her toes to peek through the door’s peep-hole. A young man stands on the porch, and though she can’t determine his features through the mottled glass, she figures by his hat that he’s one of the summer ranch hands. She glances in the mirror adjacent to the door, smoothing a few flyaways, before pulling the door open to greet him.

“Howdy, Miss,” He pulls the Stetson from his head, holding it to his chest, with one hand “Is Mr. Ashe home?”

She pauses for a moment before she replies. examining him. He can’t be more than twenty, the sharp and youthful angles of his face marred with the hint of a five-o-clock shadow. He flashes her a brilliant smile, the warmth of which reaches his eyes, and runs his free hand through his tousled black hair. She can feel a slight blush rise to her cheeks. “Far as I know, he ain’t. Should be back within the hour, though. I’d be happy to wait with you.” She gestures to one of the cushioned benches on the porch, and he tips his head in gratitude, taking a seat. “Can I get you a glass of water?”

+

She returns with two glasses of ice water, setting them both on the small side table adjacent to the bench. He stands as she arrives, and waits until she’s taken the seat across from him to sit down again.

“Thank you kindly, Miss.” He smiles again, and she is once again struck by the genuine warmth of it, “Don’t figure I’ve rightly introduced myself. Jesse Mcree, at your service.” He extends a calloused, sun-tanned hand for her to shake, and she obliges.

“Pleasure to meet you, Jesse. Elizabeth Ashe.”

His eyes get a little wide, and he sets down the glass of water, removing his hat from his head once more and bowing his head. “Why, Ms. Ashe, I--”

She waves away whatever apology for familiarity he’s forming. “Please, just call me Elizabeth. Save the formalities for my father.”

He laughs in response -- a hearty, genuine sound, and she finds herself smiling back at him.

+

She takes to spending the evenings with him around the paddock, and he takes to calling her Lizzie. Elizabeth, he explains, makes her sound like some stuck-up princess. Lizzie’s good, she replies, ‘cause she sure as hell ain’t a princess. He says she’s pretty enough to be one, which turns the tips of her ears red.

She learns his grin is as cocky as it is warm, and though he’s quick to a smart-aleck response, he’s not much for reading, and so sometimes she brings along a book and they read together, slowly, by the light of the campfire. He learns she knows long words better than she does slang and teases her mercilessly for it. He smokes cigars because he thinks it makes him look cool, and she pinches packs of menthol’s from her mother’s nightstand so they can sit together as the sun sets and the darkness gathers, the angles of their faces illuminated by the glowing embers of their mutual bad habit.

One evening, as the sun sinks in the sky and the shadows of the scrub brush grow long, he closes the paddock gate behind him and asks if she knows how to shoot. He delivers it as a passing question, but it digs itself under her skin all the same -- a talent of his, pressing just the right buttons.

“‘Course I can shoot, Jesse.” Her tone is clipped and he grins as he realizes he’s struck a nerve. A talent he revels in.

“Oh, yeah? I always figured girls who live in big houses got someone else to do the shooting for them.” She grits her teeth, hissing, and he laughs. “Oh, come on, Lizzie. No need to take it so personal. ‘Sides, no one’s stoppin’ you from showin’ off.”

+

He digs a wooden crate of empty beer bottles out from a weathered supply along the edge of the property, removing ten and carefully balancing them along the fence posts. He then pulls his pistol from the holster at his waist and hands it to her, handle first. She removes the safety and takes several steps back. He watches her with a half-amused expression, back pressed against the splintering wood of the shed, arms crossed in front of him.

The weight’s different than the biathlon rifles she’s used to, though she’d never tell Jesse that. She can imagine him now -- laughing at the rich girl on skis, hitting paper targets through a scope. She takes a deep breath, steadying herself, and fires off ten succinct shots. Nine of the bottles shatter. She blows a stray piece of long blonde hair away from her eyes, repositions her feet, and fires again. The bottle breaks and she relaxes her stance, clicking the gun’s safety back into place.

Jesse uncrosses his arms and lets out a low whistle. “Where’d a pretty little thing like you learn to shoot like that?” 

+

Target practice becomes a part of their nightly routine. She pays for the bullets, and the beer when they run out of empties, and he teaches her trick shots, how to aim for a target one-hundred meters away with no scope, and how to open a bottle with her teeth. She rides the bike her father gave her for her sixteenth birthday to the property’s edge every sunset, and he meets her there grinning, with an open bottle of the cheap Mexican beer he loves. For every bottle they break, a new empty takes its place and she quickly learns he’s a good shot even when he’s drunk. 

“Lizzie, do you think I’m corruptin’ you?”

She knocks the final bottle in the case off a fence post riddled with bullet holes and sits down next to the dying fire. Between the beer and the flickering light of the fading flames, his face swims in and out of focus as she tries to gauge his sincerity. “Jesse, that’s a stupid question. Even by your standards.”

“I’m just thinkin’,” he lights a cigar and puffs on it a little, his eyebrows furrowed, “You’re an heiress. Ain’t you supposed to be learnin’ how to go to fancy balls and buy diamond earrings and count your money? What would your parents say if they knew you were out here, gettin’ drunk with some no-good farmhand?”

She snorts, taking the lighter from him and pulling out a cigarette from the pack in her back pocket. “My parents,” she lights the cigarette and takes a drag, “are assholes, Jesse. I ain’t the least bit interested in goin’ to some fancy university and marryin’ some lawyer. I’d much rather do this forever,” she gestures with the cigarette to the fire, “than turn into my mother. ‘Sides,” she pulls a wad of bills from her pocket and hands it to him, smirking, “they’re the ones who need to learn to count their money.” 

_ July 17th, 2076 _

There are only four pairs of boots by the door that morning. She counts them carefully but doesn’t bother to ask where the other two have gone. Randall and Jay have always been a package deal. She’s surprised they didn’t turn and run the very first moment things got a little messy; surprised they made it this far at all. An accomplishment in and of itself.

She goes to the kitchen and pours herself a cup of coffee, stirring in what little cream is left in the carton on the fridge’s top-shelf. The triplets, seated at the small table in the room’s east corner, watch her quietly. The ranch house feels too big with only four occupants, she notes, taking a long sip of the coffee. It figures that, in the end, the only thing Randall and Jay were good for was taking up space.

“Coffee’s burnt.” She states, in lieu of greeting. The boys chuckle nervously in response, and she realizes they’re awaiting some kind of reckoning, a realization of the wrathful reputation she’s spent nearly a decade building. 

_ There’s only one way to leave the gang. _

Times have changed. She’s no longer calamity incarnate, scorching the ground and salting the earth of those who dared oppose her. She’s quietly drinking burnt coffee in a kitchen with linoleum flooring and trying to talk herself into exponentially increasing the amount of blood on her hands. She can’t afford to lose more men, can’t afford to risk the triplets on some wild goose chase after two assholes unwilling to die at the hands of her own reckless indecision. 

She lights a cigarette, takes a long drag, and ashes it into the dregs of her coffee. “Listen, boys, I need space to clear my head.” And she does. She’s hardly slept, and the emptiness of the house does little to calm her nerves. She wants a whiskey poured by someone else for a change. 

She’s sick of laying low.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: for the purpose of my own selfish headcanons, I've aged down both Ashe and Jesse from canon, making Ashe about 29 and McCree about 31.


End file.
